Students

Student profile: Josh Valdez Elizetxe

Computer Information Systems major Josh Valdez Elizetxe first explored a computer at the branch library where his dad dropped him every day after school. Now just 19, Josh is an entrepreneur with a track record of success. A Barrett Honors College student on full scholarship, Josh manages a heavily academic schedule while at the same time working on three new ventures. KnowIT spent some time listening to his story recently; we think you’ll agree he is a student worth watching.

2012-01-09

Updated September 23, 2013

Every day after school Josh Valdez Elizetxe’s father would drop him at the Desert Sage branch of the Phoenix Public Library where the middle school student would read and read and read. One afternoon another library patron showed him how to use the computer.

“It sparked my imagination,” Josh said recently, especially when he learned that it’s possible to make money online. But no one in his life at the time knew anything about online business; in fact the family had no computer at home. So he did what he knew how to do: he started reading. He found books on web design; he spread the word to friends when he discovered — in those pre-texting days — that you could use web sites to chat; he set up a blog and started posting.

The blog was about technology and devices: “It was about the new iPhone and all the other gadgets I wished I had,” Josh said. He would read the latest tech news, then write something for his blog.

Soon he expanded his reading to books about search optimization. As he implemented what he learned, page views grew. He found a free service to count his web traffic, and was surprised to learn he was getting a couple thousand visitors a day. Not long after that, a manufacturer emailed him and offered to pay $400 a month to post a small ad. He was amazed — and energized.

At age 13, Josh was on his way to becoming a business success.

These days Josh is a first year Barrett Honors College student majoring in Computer Information Technology. His story is not unique on campus — ASU incubates entrepreneurship throughout campus. What’s compelling about Josh is how far he has come at a very young age — in fact, at a time when his classmates are still trying to figure out how to get started, Josh says he wants to start giving back.

Serial entrepreneur

A week before final exams started this fall, Josh sat down with KnowIT to tell his story. The first semester of his first-year student year as a Barrett Honors student was nearly over, and it happened to be his 19th birthday. Spend 10 minutes with him and you’re astonished by his energy. Ever since his first brush with a computer at the public library he has been on the lookout for opportunities to test drive his growing skill set by building web sites and serving customers. One gig resulted in an idea that became the core of the next, and the next … and so on.

“One of the major issues we are working on with our Executive Advisory Board is how to build and reinforce a student culture that emphasizes digging in, rolling up your sleeves and getting things done. Josh epitomizes that culture as do many of his peers,” said Michael Goul, information systems department chairman. “It’s inspiring for our faculty to work with students like Josh — it really makes it interesting to teach them the building blocks and then watch them leverage and fashion them to new, exciting and value-adding business innovations.”

Clinical Associate Professor Sule Balkan has had Josh in class. “Josh brings his entrepreneurial experience to class discussions and makes textbook knowledge and class projects more relevant,” she said. “I can’t wait to see Josh's future unfold, and I am pleased to see that his plans include bringing his fellow school mates along in his journey through his outreach program.”

Fellow first-year student Brenda Mendez has known Josh since high school. “He’s the guy you go to, to fix anything,” she said. He’s helped fellow students with solve computer problems, and — valedictorian of Alhambra High School in Phoenix — he’s been a great study partner. “He’s helped a lot of people — and not just with academics,” Brenda said. “He’s also helpful with life issues, like self esteem.”

Experimenting to replicate success

That first business — the technology blog with its unsolicited advertising — eventually put several thousand dollars in Josh’s pocket. When its traffic caught the eye of an Italian investor, Josh sold it. He bought a computer with his earnings and set it up on a box at his house, with a clothes basket for a chair.

Selling the blog made him wonder: could he replicate the adventure? He experimented by starting several blogs, choosing general interest topics like back pain that he could research easily. He posted every day, using SEO to build traffic, and when each site reached a critical mass of visitors he sold it off.

His next foray resulted in the creation of a site where people could upload their images — similar to today’s Flickr. It took off, and soon he had to license a server to handle traffic. Eventually hits numbered hundreds of thousands per day, more than his back-end set up could handle. “I was 14 — I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “So I sold it.” Part of the $5,000 sale paid for a car.

At the time, MySpace was the new big thing. Josh was learning to create music electronically, so he started up a MySpace page where he could licensed his beats and instrumentals. “I thought, what if I applied what I know about SEO to a MySpace page,” he recalled. SEO worked as well on MySpace as it did elsewhere, and he started showing up high in Google searches. For a year his page was the number one My Space music page in Arizona.

One day a band asked him to help them optimize their site, and he showed them how redirected traffic could build their web presence. His next client gave him the chance to learn how to drive traffic on YouTube. High school first-year student Josh launched his consulting career.

Josh says this was a turning point in his life. “I noticed that I had too much energy and creativity to go to medical school or be in school for 15 years,” he said. “Instead, I found that I could help support my family by doing marketing and technology. My passion jumped out at me my first year in high school when I was promoting people on MySpace and web designing. I fell in love.”

Since then, Josh has helped an aunt run a business that connected Super Bowl visitors to homeowners willing to rent, started a site that helped resellers find software clients online, partnered with some neighbors selling solar products to homeowners and helped build several websites that assist businesses entering the online arena.

Meanwhile, back at school

Josh has the confident, fast-forward delivery of a pitch man, and he applies the same energy to his studies. He won a full scholarship to ASU’s prestigious Barrett Honors College, and earned a 4.0 grade point average in his first semester carrying 20 credit-hours. He’s the youngest of four, and the first to graduate from high school and start college.

Currently, he’s involved in three projects in addition to school, including Tempe-based CognetIQ.

Daehee Park is working with Josh to build CognetlQ. "I can confidently say that Josh is one of the rare individuals you come across from whom you immediately sense forthcoming success," Park said. "The company we are building together is a marketing company called CognetIQ, where we focus on relentlessly optimizing performance based on psychology and data. Mobile is one of the exciting channels where we are innovating."

Josh is also involved with A2Zing, also in Tempe, which helps local businesses expand online. But Tomi Academy, an online school for student entrepreneurs, is especially close to his heart. He hopes the academy will reach people who are getting started to teach them about how systems work in online businesses.

“When I was growing up I didn’t have anybody to help me out, and I’m not sad about that — I did the best I could,” he said, “but I want to help people now.” He’s also working on a book — “my first book” he says in true Josh fashion — about finding your focus and about entrepreneurship.

He hopes to finish at ASU in two and a half years, but after that? Who knows?

“I wake up every morning excited about what I’m going to do that day,” he said. “I just can’t get enough of life!”

Editor's Note: Valdez actually exceeded his goal and graduated from the W. P. Carey School in two years — not 2.5. Since this story was published, CognetIQ has become Foresold and Zetchi. September 23, 2013.

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